Welcome to Walk in the Truth podcast. How do we know where to find answers to the toughest
questions in life? While the simplest answer is the Bible, where do we start this search
and how do we discover this truth? Today, in this teaching podcast, John Meador, lead
pastor of Cross City Church, takes a specific text of the Bible and helps us find truth
for the life we're searching for. We are so glad you're here today. If you have your
Bibles, please take them and turn to the book of Philippians. This will be our third week
in the book of Philippians. A couple of weeks ago, we did kind of a quick overview. Then
last week we looked at verse one of Philippians chapter one. Today, tribal principles, some
principles that Paul is writing to the church at Philippi about helping them know how do
you live this life of joy? How do you get to that place where joy really becomes a possibility
in your life? Philippians chapter one, beginning in verse one. Stand with me as we read God's
word together today. As you stand, I want to keep in mind before you, it's kind of hard
to believe that we're only six weeks away from Easter. It's hard to believe it. I mean,
it comes fast. Next week is March 3rd. March 31st is actually Easter Sunday. We have Easter
weekend, the Good Friday Cross service that we do every year, and then of course Easter
Sunday morning. Lots to pray for. I ask you to just do your best to reach out to people,
invite them to come. We would love to see this place full of people. Many of them maybe
never have heard the gospel before. We would have no greater privilege than to see them
come to faith in Christ. At the very least, hear a clear presentation of the gospel, which
they will. Philippians chapter one. All right, we're going to read all of the first eight
verses. Now this is a family letter, a small church, Philippi, between 75 and 100 people
in that church. It never got bigger than that. And yet it was a significant group of believers.
It was the first church in Europe. Paul heard the Macedonian vision, came across with Silas
and Timothy and Luke. And so we have this incredible letter that he writes back to the
church at Philippi. It's a family letter, as I said, four times in this text that we'll
read the words, you all are side by side. And I'm just going to say y'all today. I hope
you'll forgive me because you all is y'all. It's not right. Y'all with me today? Y'all
with me. Amen. And then four other times, the word you is used always in the plural.
So actually there's eight y'alls in this verse. It's about the family of God. Here's what
it says. Paul and Timothy, bond servants of Christ Jesus to all the saints in Christ Jesus
who were in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons. Grace to you and peace from God,
our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you. That's
that plural there. Always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all in
view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. For I am confident
of this very thing that he who began a good work and you will perfect it until the day
of Christ Jesus. Anybody that loves that verse just say amen. That verse is going to be a
verse we come back to in a moment and spend some time on. For it is only right for me
to feel this way about you all because I have you in my heart since both in my imprisonment
and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of grace with
me. For God is my witness how long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. You
see it's all the way through there. You'll never be able to read this first chapter the
same way again. Y'alls all the way through that. Let's pray together. Father, I pray
for the illumination of your Holy Spirit in this text. Help us to see these simple words,
what they mean, how they should affect us towards joy. We ask this in Jesus name and
everybody said amen. Please be seated if you would. So we've talked a little bit about
Paul and the circumstances before he wrote this letter today. Writing back to the church
at Philippi that he started after the Macedonian vision. So this is obviously a group of people
that he loves. He's interacted with them now for about 10 years in various ways. And so
he's writing this letter back to them, helping them know the focus of joy. Now at this time
he's in a Roman prison as he writes. And I have to think about the Roman imprisonment
of Paul. He was in prison several times. He was always in prison it seemed like. But in
prison he wrote the book of Ephesians, the book of Colossians, the book of Philippians
and then a more personal letter called Philemon. He wrote them all from a prison cell. And
he was in various forms of Roman imprisonment. Sometimes he was in chains. Often he was chained
to a Roman soldier. All the time he was in prison. Sometimes he was in an underground
prison at Caesarea by the sea. And I can't imagine sitting down and writing a letter
with a quill pen of some sort and a parchment of some sort and what subject would first
come to my mind. If I'd been in prison, in and out of prison for two years for preaching
the gospel of Jesus, I could only imagine what I might write a letter about. He could
be writing a letter about the injustice of where he is. He could be writing a letter
about Nero and the wicked Roman empire. He could be writing a letter about those that
betrayed him or deceived him. But no, Paul in this prison cell says, I know what I'll
do. I'll write a letter about joy. I'll let people know that no matter what your
circumstance is, no matter how hard your day is, no matter how hard your year or your ministry
is, no matter how hard it is in life in general, you can have the kind of joy that you want
to write home about. And that's what he does in the book of Philippians. He's writing
back to them. And in all his comments, they all lead to this idea of joy that's beyond
the happiness of what the world can give you, beyond the happiness of just good friendships
and good feelings and good food and whatever else brings us happiness. It goes far deeper
than that. It's about the joy that supersedes all those things. You want to read this book.
You want to dissect this book. But here's what happens. We read the book of Philippians
and we read through it very quickly because it's only four chapters. It's very simple.
And we kind of read through real quick and we miss some of those really important pieces
of this letter on joy. Well, I want to go slowly through this. So as we read this passage
today and look at this passage, we're going to look at some tribal principles that will
help us be at the same place Paul is in the joy when times are tough, the joy when things
aren't perfect.
So first of all, I want you to notice as we read this that Paul talks about the right
kind of remembering, the right kind of remembering. He's praying for people and he's praying for
the church as a whole. And he says this as an unusual line. He said, I thank God in all
my remembrance of you always offering prayer with joy. I'm sure there are many things that
brought Paul joy about this church. Think about the Macedonian vision that was so supernatural.
He finally found God's will for his life and he went that way along with Silas and Timothy
and Luke. Think about Lydia, the lady that was at the seaside basically at the area by
the water, by the river where she was open to the gospel. God had already prepared her
heart and there was no synagogue there. There were not enough Jewish people there. It was
basically a Roman colony, but Lydia was open and Paul preached the gospel and she accepted
Christ and the passage in Acts 16 says that she and her family were baptized. And then
he turns around and says to Paul, why don't you just have my house, take my house, take
my porch, start your church in this place. He might've had that memory. It might've been
the memory of being in jail with Silas and singing hymns in jail. You remember that story
of the book of Acts and prison doors opening up and the Philippian jailer coming to faith
in Jesus Christ. Or maybe he's remembering casting demons out of the young girl that
was prophesying over him by demonic infiltration in her life. All kinds of things he could've
been remembering, but he also references in the letters some bad things as well. He said,
beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those that preach the gospel from
the wrong motive. So Philippi was a typical church. It wasn't a perfect church. Even though
they had a perfect savior, it was a church with good and bad. And yet Paul says, I thank
God for all my remembrance of you. It wouldn't have been like Paul to say, I thank God for
some of the things that I remember about you, but some of those things I'm not going to
thank God for. He doesn't say that. He says something very different. He says, I thank
God for everything that I remember about your life. Now I want to read this text and I see
Paul's heart and his life. I realized that this is not a perfect church, but he is taking
a perfect attitude. He has a selective memory loss, a selective memory loss. How many of
you in the room have ever been accused of selective hearing loss? Would you raise your
hand if you've ever been accused of that? Because that means you only hear what you
want to hear, right? How many of you that have been accused of that are men? Would you
raise your hand if you are men? Okay. I believe that. How many of your wives accused you of
that? Would you raise your hand? No, no, you don't have to do that. You don't have to do
that. Well, selective memory loss is much like a selective hearing loss. You only remember
what you want to remember. Why would Paul say, every remembrance I have of you, I give
thanks to God with joy over that? And I think the answer to that is Paul remembered the
great things about what God was doing at the church at Philippi and set the other things
aside. I think he didn't keep that in mind. I think he had a memory and a selective memory
loss. As you walk through the letter to Philippi, you see some of those things that he doesn't
really bring up, but are facts about what was going on there. Now, there's lots of reasons
for joy. He talks about their participation in the gospel and the fellowship of the gospel.
It means that they have the same kind of faith. It means they have the same savior. It means
they have the same mission. It means that they are like-minded when it comes to carrying
out the ministry of the gospel. And in the beginning of that church, they worked together
in a powerful way. But Paul, when he prayed, when he thought back to them, thought back
about the great things that God had done there and forgave them the things that weren't great.
And I want to tell you today, that's a great attitude to have. It's a great tribal practice
to have if you're going to have joy in the body of Christ. Stay with me here.
Did you know the Bible tells us that God remembers our sin no more? And we can't chalk that up
to God being someone that has a memory problem. God doesn't have any thought problems, any
memory problems. But the Bible says that he remembers our sin no more. As a matter of
fact, I'll go back to the book of Hebrews chapter 10, a great, great text that talks
about the powerful things that happened through Jesus Christ being our high priest. And he
says, this is the covenant I will make with them after those days, says the Lord. I'll
put my laws upon their heart and on their mind I will write them. Then he says, and
their sins and their lollusties I will remember no more. Now I don't know about you, but I
get a lot of joy when I hear that verse right there. Their sins I will remember no more.
How many of you in the room have sins that you remember that God has forgiven you of
and you're glad God remembers them no more? Just say amen today to that. I am grateful
for this verse. This verse tells me that God not only forgives, but he forgives completely
and he doesn't bring it up again. He allows that to be the path and the path ought to
be the path and it ought to bring you joy that you're forgiven as it brings joy that
I'm forgiven. And it's important for us to know that we can also practice the same kind
of forgiveness and remember those other things no more. Learn the lessons, but release them
from their offense. And Paul is taking that approach. All my remembrance of you, I thank
God with great joy. I'm not letting anything else that happened to me while I was there
hold me back from the great joy I have from what God is doing in this spiritual family.
I wrote this down because I think it's important that selective memory loss will allow us to
forget what we need to leave to the past and remember what we need to bring us into the
future. That's a pretty big deal. You've got to remember the good things. You've got to
forget the tough things that happened to you in the body of Christ and in life in general.
And I know you can anguish in prayer if you want. You can just worry over that all the
time you want to worry over that, but it won't bring you progress and it won't bring you
joy. Paul chose to remember those things. All those things brought him joy. He didn't say,
I thank God for most of my remembrance of you. I thank God for some of my remembrance
of you, except that one thing or two things. He said, I thank God for all my remembrance.
And it was just his practice. Keep reading in the book of Philippians and you'll see
he comes across a verse that you're very familiar with. Philippians chapter three, verse 13
and 14. He says, one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what
lies ahead. I press on. Paul says, I'm not going to sit there and think about all the
victories or the successes or the failures of the past, but what I am going to do is
I'm going to remember the great things and then I'm going to reach forward and move towards
the prize that God has for us. And I was writing this down the other day. I just felt led to
just in that moment, writing it down to say, take a moment right here at this point in
the message. Just take a moment. And I felt led to say, you need to exercise this kind
of remembrance in your own church life and your own faith life with your family of faith.
How do you do that? Well, you do that by saying, I'm going to have a selective memory loss
here with the imperfect people that are around me. I'm going to remember what God did in
spite of them and how God worked around them and sometimes even through them. Maybe you
need to have a selective memory loss for others in your life that hurt you, that wounded you.
Maybe it means you need to forget and forgive that one person that said something to you
or about you or what that leader did those years ago. That keeps you from really fully
believing God in this present day or what that pastor said or what that group did or
what the church of Jesus Christ as a whole did or didn't do. And just come to the place
of saying, I know that the church is not perfect, but I also know that Jesus Christ is and I'm
going to keep my eyes on him. I'm going to press on towards him. I'm going to forget
what lies behind. I'm going to reach forward to what lies ahead. One of the greatest things
you can do in life is to be able to come to the place like Paul. I thank God for every
remembrance of you, all the great things that God did through you. When my father was a
pastor back in the day when I was in college, my dad pastored for a number of years. He
actually was a full-time pastor when he passed away a few years ago. And I was in high school
and just graduated from high school going into college. My dad was in a church in Oklahoma,
always pastored small churches in Oklahoma until that point. And sometimes small churches
can be tough. They can be hard. And he was in a tough church, a hard church. It was a
good church in many ways, but tough in other ways. And I knew some things that were going
on behind the scenes and some accusations that were made about him that were not true.
They were not moral or anything like that. They just had some people that didn't like
him for some reason. And I can remember being in college thinking, man, I wish I could meet
up with some of those deacons on my own. I would help them out a little bit. And it wasn't
a very spiritual thought I was having. I just wanted to come to my dad's defense. And one
of the things I said during that time, God began working in my life and I began reading
scripture and seeing that he was calling me to do something. And I said, God, I'll do
anything for you except pastor. I won't pastor. Because all I can think of is the experiences
my dad went through as a pastor and I'm not signing up for that. I'm just not going to
do it. And over time, God worked in my heart, worked in my mind, helped me see that he was
bigger than any church, that he was really the one I'd be serving and not people that
might be hard to deal with. And I was able to get past that. And I'm so glad I did. But
it came from selective memory loss. It came from doing the same thing that Paul is doing.
I thank God for every remembrance I have of you with great joy. Because I saw what God
was doing through the church and in spite of imperfect people, Jesus was really being
elevated and exhausted and people were coming to faith in Jesus. Even in that church back
then, that helped me get past all the imperfections of the church. And Paul is showing us how
to get past of all the imperfections of the church. And if you don't do that, what a loss
it will be to the church and to your life. So I have three words of advice to you. Let
it go. Let it go. God has the ability to wipe that clean, to forgive everyone involved.
Let it go. You say, well is that cryptic? Are you referring to something pastor? And
I'm saying no. Nothing at all except whatever you might have experienced that keeps you
from moving forward. Paul says you need to have the right kind of remembrance. The right
kind of remembrance. Secondly, Paul moves into this great verse, verse six, where he
talks about the right kind of confidence. Verse six is amazing. We're going to have
it on the screen here. I want you to read it out loud with me. Yes, out loud. And I
want us to read it out loud so that we can kind of let it reverberate inside of our minds
and hearts. And here it is. I think it's on the screen right now. Are you ready? Read
it with me. For I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you
will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. Isn't that an amazing verse? Let's read it
one more time. This time read it like you believe it, okay? Here we go. That means loud.
For I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect
it until the day of Christ Jesus. You need to highlight that. You need to write it down
somewhere. Maybe you open up your Bible to the very first page where there are several
places for you to write a note down. Write this verse down right here. How you run the
race has something to do with you, but how you finish it has everything to do with him.
You came to faith in Jesus because he convicted you of your sin if you are a believer today.
But how you finish the race has everything to do with who he is, and less about who you
are. Paul's writing this verse and essentially is saying, I am so convinced of this, so persuaded
of how God works in a person's life, that I declare to you, he who began a good work
in you will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. Whether I'm with you or not, whether
another leader is there or not, I'm not worried about anybody who's in leadership there or
absent. I'm not worried about any circumstance that's good or bad. I'm convinced that he
who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. My confidence
is in God, is what Paul is saying. Is your confidence in God? Do you have the right kind
of confidence? That's a pretty big deal. At the very least, this verse speaks of eternal
security at the very least. I know that whoever God saves, he will mature or perfect or complete
until the day of Christ Jesus. It doesn't mean he's going to make you a perfect human
being. It means that he is going to mature you until the day when you are ultimately
totally transformed and you have a glorified body and obviously will be just like Jesus
in that sense of the word. That's what John is talking about when he says, when we see
him we shall become just like him because we'll see him just as he really is. That's
an incredible thing that can't happen until heaven, but in the meantime you're going to
be growing and you're going to be maturing and being perfected by everything that he's
doing in your life. It means eternal security and everything else about growing in the Christian's
life. Let me just say this, doctrinally speaking, we say this a lot and it's true. Here's a
line that we use as a Baptist and I'd say most Bible believing people have this line
as well, once saved, always saved. If you've heard that line, would you raise your hand
if you've heard it before? Once saved, always saved. Over the years of preaching, I've come
to define quite a bit about what it means to be saved. I've added a word to that once
saved, always saved. I always add that word because it's important for people to stop
and consider what they're thinking or saying when they say this line. Here's what I say,
once truly saved, always saved. You know why I do that, correct? Don't you know why I do
this? Because I don't want someone to believe that there's some transaction that happens
where you fill out your name on a card when you walk forward during an invitation or that
you did in vacation Bible school or that you did at some summer camp or some service where
you just prayed a prayer but it didn't make any difference in your life at all and then
you're banking on that for eternal security and I would just say no, no, no, once truly
saved, always saved. Once the Spirit of God actually grips you and you have not only eternal
life but you have the Spirit of God dwelling in your life, once he begins to change you
from the inside out, that's the truly we're talking about. Once truly saved, always saved.
If he began and did work in you, not a church work but a divine spiritual work, if he began
and did work in you, he will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. That's what Paul
said. Long before vacation Bible school, long before church camp, long before revivals,
long before Billy Graham, long before TV ministries and track, Paul said he that began a good
work in you will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. At the very least it means
that once you are born again into the kingdom of God and you have Christ in your life, your
salvation is secure and eternal. Somebody clap in this room, my goodness, that means
forever and ever, forever. So what does that really mean and where do we get that idea?
Well Jesus introduced that idea in John chapter 10 verse 28, most of you know this verse.
He said I give eternal life to them and they shall never perish and no one will snatch
them out of my hand. Verse 29 goes on, Jesus goes on and says my heavenly father has given
them to me and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand. What a powerful word
to those disciples, to us today in John chapter 10. Later in his letter to Ephesus, Paul wrote
this in Ephesians chapter 1, in him that is in Jesus, you also after having listened to
the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed you were sealed in him
with the Holy Spirit of promise who is given as a pledge of our inheritance. So not only
are you going to be in the hands of Jesus and the hands of the father that no one can
snatch you out of, you are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. His presence in your
life is a pledge from God himself that I will bring you to myself in that final day. If
you have the Holy Spirit in your life it's God's wedding ring on you that says they are
married to me. I am the groom, they are the bride. I will have them on that last day.
What an incredible picture. He that began a good work and you will complete it until
the day of Christ Jesus. Jude in this tiny little book just before the book of Revelation
at the end of the New Testament opens up by saying to those who are the called, beloved
in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ. You like that word? I like that word kept.
If you've been called that means you are also loved or beloved and it also means you
are kept by Jesus Christ. You are kept men and women in this room if you have come to
faith in Jesus Christ. Kept by God who is more powerful than anything else and cannot,
there's no way anyone can snatch you out of that. Go all the way to the last verse of
Jude and here's what he says, to him who is able to keep you from falling and present
you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy. At the very least, he
who began a good work and you will complete it to the day of Christ Jesus means your eternal
security. The Baptist faith in the message of 2000 has a great wording for this. I'm
going to read directly out of that, I'll quote it. It says, all true believers endure to
the end. Those whom God has accepted in Christ and sanctified by his Spirit will never fall
away from the state of grace but shall persevere to the end. Now keep listening to me. Believers
may fall into sin through neglect and temptation whereby they grieve the Spirit, impair their
graces and comforts, and bring reproach on the cause of Christ and temporal judgments
on themselves, yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.
Now you're thinking through your minds. So that means a person can have a season of sin
even though they're true believers in Jesus and I would say yes to that. That's exactly
what the Baptist faith in the message clarifies. That's exactly what the book of 1 Corinthians
helps us with. That believers in Jesus Christ are not perfect on the day they accept Christ
but are being made perfect, made complete in the whole journey of walking with Christ.
And while there may be a season of sin that you're in, you will not be happy in that
season of sin. You will be miserable because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in your
life that convicts you at every turn. You're going the wrong way. You're going the wrong
way. Turn around. Come back to me who died for you, who saved you. I am so grateful for
the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life. I can't tell you how many times that conviction
or that sense of grieving him or quenching him has made me stop at my tracks and say
this is not the direction I'm supposed to be going in because I'm a child of God kept
by God and he's doing a work in my life and I don't want it to stop. That's what this
verse means. It's real. He's real. At the very least it speaks of your eternal security
but it also speaks of the progress of the believer. Because salvation gives you a new
nature and with a new nature you don't just live any way you want to live. You don't live
the way you lived in the past. You have the Spirit of God inside of your life and you're
constantly being led and convicted to go the way God calls you to go. So if you're asking
the question which you should be, what does it take to finish well? What does it take
to be perfected? It takes someone who can begin the work and finish the work who lives
inside of you which is what verse 6 says. He who began a good work in you will perfect
it until the day of Christ Jesus. Do you find it interesting that in verse 6 Paul starts
with the word he with the pronoun for God instead of using the actual name of God instead
of saying God who began a good work in you or the Lord who began a good work in you or
Jesus Christ who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.
He doesn't do that. He uses the word he. And normally in language of the original language
the use of the pronoun draws attention to the character instead of the name. In other
words when you think of God you think of a certain thing. When you think of Jesus you
think of a certain characteristic. But using the word he means you have to do a search
in your mind what is the character being emphasized in this verse. Now here's the verse again.
He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. And here's
what I believe Paul wanted us to be thinking about. Not just these huge theological concepts
but very practical concepts about the he who began a good work in you. I want you to look
at it on the screen with me for just a moment. You have the verse he who began a good work
in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. And the way we ought to think about
this in the various days of our lives is like this. He who created me will complete all
the work in me until the day of Christ Jesus. He who saves me will complete me until the
day of Christ Jesus. He who forgives me will complete me until the day of Christ Jesus.
He who strengthens me will keep me until the day of Christ Jesus. He who transforms me
will perfect me until the day of Christ Jesus. He who indwells me will perfect me until the
day of Christ Jesus. He who provides for me will perfect me until the day of Christ Jesus.
He who leads me will perfect me until the day of Christ Jesus. That's the word for every
need you have on the road to being perfected being matured. Jesus has an answer for that
as His personality and His character at work in your life.
He who began a good work in you will complete it
until the day of Christ Jesus.
The right kind of confidence is right there, right there.
You've seen Him create, you've seen Him save,
you've seen Him strengthen, you've seen Him forgive,
you've seen Him transform, you've seen Him do all these
things, and now He's in your life doing those things.
And when you doubt, you just remember that He who began
will also perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
The right kind of confidence means we have no confidence
in ourselves.
Paul goes on in the book of Philippians chapter three,
verse three, and he says, for we are the true circumcisions
who worship in the Spirit of God in glory in Christ Jesus
and put no confidence in the flesh.
Paul says, we're not the people that say,
oh, I can do this on my own.
We're not the people who say, I don't need God.
I mean, I know the right thing to do, I'm just gonna do it.
We're not the people who do that.
We put no confidence in the flesh, we don't put any
confidence in religion, but what we do put confidence in
is He who began the good work, who's gonna complete it
until the day of Christ Jesus.
At no point is God unable to complete the work
He began in you.
Did you hear me?
Now you may feel pretty inadequate,
but God is never inadequate.
You may feel like you're not sure how He's gonna come through,
but He is sure, He knows exactly how He is going
to come through.
That's what compels Paul to say, what he said in Galatians
chapter two, verse 20, and many of you know this verse.
I have been crucified with Christ.
It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
And the life which I now live in the flesh,
I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me
and who gave Himself up for me.
It's not I, it's Christ.
It's not me doing the work, it's God doing the work.
Now some people feel, I just like to call this
the perseverance of the saints.
Have you heard that phrase before?
The saints will persevere.
Even the, the Bible's faith in the message says
the saints will endure, true saints will endure.
But I don't prefer that word because I want it to be
really clear that it's not my perseverance
that makes this happen.
It's not your perseverance that makes it happen,
even though we ought to persevere.
It's His preservation that makes it happen.
So I like the line, the preservation of the saints.
When I get to heaven one day and I stand before Jesus Christ
and He says, well done, good and faithful servant.
I'm gonna look back at my life and I go, well it wasn't me.
Who was you?
All along, it was you.
That's why getting to heaven is an absolute free gift.
I didn't earn my way there.
I may have earned a few crowns like you will earn crowns
as you serve Him, but those are to be cast
at the feet of Jesus in glory and honor of Him.
Well done, good and faithful servant.
Well it wasn't me, it was you Lord.
Paul says the right kind of confidence
is really important in your life.
In 1 Corinthians 15, 10, another favorite of mine.
Here's what Paul says, he says, by the grace of God
I am what I am and His grace towards me did not prove vain
but I labored more than them all and yet not I
but the grace of God in me.
Now you have to read that two or three times
before you figure out what he's saying.
He's saying it's God's grace that made me so good
that made me so motivated that I wanted to give my best
but it was not me but the grace of God in me
that caused me to do what I did.
Paul had this acute awareness that it's not his performance
that makes him complete until the day of Christ Jesus.
It's what God does in his life.
You need to have the right kind of confidence
and the right kind of confidence is not in you but in Him.
And if you're ever in doubt, don't beat yourself up
over your inability but lean on Him and His ability
to bring it all to pass.
For I'm convinced, I'm confident of this very thing
that he who began to get work on you will complete it
even to the day of Christ Jesus.
And there's one more thing that he says here
in verse seven and eight and it's the right kind
of affection.
Here's what he says to this family,
this church family or family of faith,
the tribe as we've been describing it.
For God is my witness how I long for you all
with the attraction or affection, excuse me,
affection of Christ, the affection of Christ.
I long for you all.
Paul's a man's man.
He doesn't do a lot of touchy-feely stuff
but here he is saying, man, I've got this feeling for you.
He actually uses that phrase in Philippians.
And I long for you with the affection of Christ.
It took me a while to figure out all that he was saying
but I think I have it now.
Y'all remember going and taking family photos
when you were young?
Anybody remember the name Olin Mills?
Gosh, those were nightmare times for us.
I mean, to get all six kids to be able to smile,
sit still, not pick their nose, not hit each other
while the photographer was trying to set us up was tough.
Some of the hardest times of our life.
I mean, that's the person's kitchen we faced.
We had six kids at Olin Mills at one time.
And almost every single time at the end of it,
they didn't like us and we didn't like them.
And Olin Mills was happy for us to leave.
They didn't even want any appointments
after it's self pictures.
Just let the family go.
Just let them go.
It was rough.
But almost every time there was at least one photo
where everybody's eyes were open, everybody was smiling,
and they looked like they were a family.
And we would hold that photo up and we would say,
yeah, I see the family resemblance.
That's our family.
And we'd have those warm feelings, right?
And we still pull those photos out every once in a while.
And we forget all the bad things, right?
Leading up to that photo, we rejoice in that one moment.
Now Paul's doing this not in a sense
of Olin Mills' photograph, but he's doing this
in the sense of the church at Philippi,
who was walking with him in what he calls
the fellowship of the gospel,
in view of your participation of the gospel
from that day until now.
In other words, you get me.
You understand me.
And I understand you.
And we're in this place surrounded by the Roman Empire
and Greek culture, and we are definitely in a minority.
And we have a priority of getting the gospel to other people.
And we worship someone that nobody else knows,
but we understand each other.
And when I think about you, my family of faith,
I am moved with this warm affection of Jesus Christ.
The first time I traveled overseas to preach was in Brazil
at the age of about 22 years of age.
And we stayed with, the different members of our team
stayed with Brazilian families
who spoke largely only Portuguese,
and we spoke largely only English.
And we would go to worship services with them
at their church, and we would just have meals with them
and so forth.
And I was astounded at the age of 22,
astounded by the closeness of fellowship
and the camaraderie I felt with a family
that we didn't have anything else in the world
in common with except the gospel of Jesus.
That's all.
We both loved Jesus.
There were some words that translated amen,
translates everywhere, hallelujah translates everywhere.
They used English for praise the Lord.
And so we could be in their worship services
and kind of understand what was going on.
But more than anything else, we felt affection for them
in an unusual way because we are fellow believers with them.
I'll be the first to tell you,
I'm not an emotional guy at all.
I rarely ever cry.
Just when the cowboys lose, which is a lot, I guess.
But I can think about some of you in this church
and some groups of you that I walk closely with.
And I have to take a step back and push pause
because my eyeballs are sweating just a little bit.
At the great affection I feel because we are
on the same page of the gospel.
We have the same calling, the same mission.
And God is using us in some incredible ways.
That moves me.
And I'd like to think I'm a little bit like Paul there,
who talked about the affection of Jesus Christ.
And it's not just there because Paul's also thinking
about another time where they're not just gonna be standing
around praying or worshiping Jesus on earth,
but they're gonna be standing around a throne.
That's in that last day, that last time.
Standing on that throne, worshiping the King of Kings
and the Lord of Lords.
That's part of the camaraderie of the body of Christ
and part of what Paul is communicating right there.
The right kind of affection for those people around you.
And it's not the affection that says,
I like you and you like me and we're a happy family.
It's not even the statement of,
I don't like you necessarily, but I love you in Jesus.
You've heard that before.
People have said that to me before, by the way.
Pastor, I don't like you, but in Jesus, I guess I love you.
This is more of God placed us together.
We're walking together as the body of Christ.
And I have warm affection for you of Jesus Christ, Paul said,
to the church at Philippi.
Wow.
So put it all together.
What does this passage say about finding joy?
I'll summarize it like this.
Find your joy in the great things God has already done.
The ongoing work he's doing within you
and the amazing tribe he's placed around you.
Find your joy there.
It's there to be had.
It's there to be experienced.
And when you walk in that,
no matter what your circumstances are,
no matter the potholes in life
and the difficulties and all the adversities,
Paul was going through all these things.
But there in the midst of all that,
you'll find the joy that Jesus intends for you to have.
And I want that for you.
He wants that for you.
Would you bow your head for just a moment?
As I close in prayer, I'll just simply say
that the fellowship that we're talking about here
is entered into by a faith relationship with Jesus Christ.
Coming to him by faith, asking him to forgive you of sin,
give you the gift of eternal life.
And we would love to talk to you about that today.
Maybe you're not sure if you are truly saved.
We talked about once truly saved, always saved.
Are you truly saved?
Have you truly come to faith in Jesus?
Has there been times after you put your faith in Christ
in your mind that your heart was being transformed?
Have you seen evidence of the work of his spirit
in your life?
And if that's there, rejoice.
If it's not there, let's talk about it.
And we can talk through what that means
and what it takes to come to the place
of giving Christ your life.
So I invite you to come by the decision stations
that we have available at the End of East Service.
I invite you to come to our guest reception center.
If you're a guest here today,
I would love to visit with you for just about 10 or 15 minutes
about Cross City Church and how we might be able to connect.
And then lastly, I invite you to invite others to come back
as we walk through this amazing letter.
Would you stand with me as we have a closing word of prayer?
Father, I do wanna thank you so much for this group of people
in this room today for this book, the Book of Philippians.
For the appals of Paul who wrote this
under the inspiration of your Holy Spirit.
And ultimately thanking you, Lord,
for the fact that you want us to know these things
and to be able to find joy in our life circumstances in you.
So Lord, I pray today that you will help make application
to every heart, every room, every person in the room today
that allows them make the decisions that lead us to you.
Thank you, Father.
I ask all this in Jesus' name.
Amen, God bless.
Have a wonderful Lord's Day.